Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Geli, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Titan Group conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the nine-month 2026 results. Please note, this call and presentation is intended for analysts and investors only. All participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Marcel Cobuz, Chair of the Group Executive Committee, and Mr. John Ioannou, Group CFO. Mr. Cobuz, you may now proceed.
Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and great to have you all here. Earlier today, we have reported our nine-month results, where quarter three figures are reflecting, or they are marked by our U.S. market constraints, facing headwinds, given the deteriorating housing market, the increased energy and fuel costs, which are therefore increasing higher operating cost environment. Also, job site labor shortage and record unfavorable weather conditions, particularly in Florida. To add to this, we have faced in quarter three also an unplanned maintenance at our Roanoke plant in Virginia. Despite these headwinds, which are mainly market-driven, except the Roanoke unplanned outage, we have delivered a robust nine-month sales growth across all regions, and profitability gains mainly in Greece, Southeastern Europe, and Eastern Mediterranean. As you could see from our numbers, we have sales up 9%, driven by both solid organic and inorganic growth.
Quarter three sales, in fact, is up by 13%, thanks to the contribution of the recent acquisitions. Like-for-like is 2%. EBITDA continued to progress for the nine months at +2%, again, with growth across all regions except U.S. Quarter 3 EBITDA has been down in U.S. by 18.6%, which has impacted the group EBITDA down by 17.6%. Decline mainly on the unplanned maintenance in Roanoke, as well as market headwinds, as previously explained. On the net profit, you see a good progression there, and among others, this is the result of doubling the EBITDA impact in our Brazilian operations, which we consolidate at the net income level. We have accelerated our self-help and cost discipline measures with our group-wide program called PRIME, which John will go more into details. Year-to-date benefits here show already EUR 40 million already delivered.
This only partly offsets the higher energy and raw material cost. About $20 million of this is thanks to our U.S. efforts. Given the execution momentum and also additional benefits identified, we are upping the target, which initially was EUR 100 million, as announced at the time of the investor day, to EUR 150 million by 2029 on these self-help measures. Very happy to report that we made significant progress in very fast integrating the recently made acquisitions. I remind you that we have mobilized about EUR 700 million in capital across three acquisitions in Northwestern France, in Pennsylvania in Keystone, and in Istanbul market. These acquisitions have already generated close to EUR 30 million in EBITDA. Margins are already improving, and we are well on track to deliver synergies, and John will give you more details on the absolute figures that we are targeting.
But these synergies are related to actual improvement in terms of reliability, the use of much cheaper alternative fuels versus fossil fuels, and also capacity improvements. We continue progressing on the growth CapEx projects, which supports our targets for TITAN Forward 2029 strategy. I think you have seen in our press release, we are giving more details on the investments which are in the alternative cementitious materials, both in U.S. and Europe. We are progressing on the second production line in Traçim in Türkiye, which will equip the group with a low-cost new line, which is meant to support the export sales to U.S., but also on a thriving market around Istanbul. We are progressing on the project of kaolin clay in Virginia, which is now entering the technical phase. We do have some progress on our carbon capture project in Athens, Greece.
which is still under assessment, given the regulatory framework which still needs to be stabilized. Very happy to report that the captive solar power plant, which is critical to add additional EBITDA in Traçim, is well advanced, under construction, and expected to come on stream in the first quarter of 2027. That will equip with an additional 100 MW capacity, which will bring to the bottom line between $12 million and $14 million. As regards the guidance and the outlook, we will go more into details, but that reflects the recent near-term market dynamics, higher interest, mortgage rate in U.S. impacting the housing or the residential market, overall, the inflationary pressures. However, we maintain high single-digit sales growth across the group, and we update on mid-single digits EBITDA growth, which is supported by our PRIME projects.
Again, benefits which are expected around EUR 60 million for the year, and contributions from the synergies in the recently made acquisitions. We will maintain our CapEx discipline, and we guide around EUR 300 million in terms of CapEx for the year. I hand over to John, who will walk us through the financials of the quarter, of the nine months, as well as a couple of highlights on each of the regions. John?
Thank you, Marcel. Good afternoon, everyone, from my side as well. I will now expand more on the figures, initiatives, and investments Marcel just mentioned. Let me start by sharing an executive summary of financial results for September year-to-date. Our robust top-line growth and portfolio resilience supported our reported results. Sales grew by 9%, EBITDA by 2%, while adjusted net profit increased by 9% as well. During quarter three, the pressure concentrated in the U.S., where energy cost inflation and one-offs outweighed pricing. As such, in Q3, while group sales improved by 13%, EBITDA declined by 9%. Our capital expenditure and M&A investments are progressing in line with the TITAN Forward strategy.
Year-to-date, we invested approximately EUR 250 million on growth, productivity, and efficiency CapEx projects, and about EUR 700 million for the three acquisitions completed in the first half of the year, the integration of which is accelerating and delivering synergies. Despite the increased investment activity, our leverage ratio stands strong at 1.56 times EBITDA, and we are happy to announce that our credit rating was upgraded last month by S&P Global Ratings to investment grade from BB+ to BBB-. This upgrade reflects the health of our balance sheet position, our disciplined financial policies, and our strong execution. Our earnings per share stands at EUR 3.25, a 9% growth versus prior year. I will discuss the outlook for the year at the end of the presentation, so allow me to move to the next pages to provide further financial analysis.
Our sales in Q3 grew by 2% on a like-for-like basis, while synergies from our M&A pushed the reported growth rates to 13%. For the nine months, our sales on a like-for-like basis increased by 5%, while on a reported basis, the growth stood at 9%, again supported by the synergies from acquisitions. Moving on to EBITDA. In Q3, we faced severe cost headwinds as a result of the escalating wars and political uncertainty, which negatively impacted macros and supply-driven inflation of energy and raw materials. This put pressure on demand and margins, especially in our U.S. region.
As a result, our year-to-date like-for-like EBITDA declined by 2%, while on a reported basis grew by 2%, supported by the resilient performance in the rest of our regions, Greece, Southeast Europe, and East Med, by contributions from our acquisitions, and by the cost savings and self-help measures of Project PRIME, as explained further in the next slide. Project PRIME, which brings under one umbrella all self-help and cost initiatives across industrial, operational, digital, and procurement work streams, delivered EUR 40 million year-to-date, out of which EUR 32 million relate to cost savings and EUR 8 million relate to additional pricing and fuel surcharges introduced to mitigate ongoing energy and cost inflation. We are targeting another EUR 20 million of savings in Q4, bringing the total to EUR 60 million.
Building on this momentum and our execution focus, as Marcel stated already, we are increasing our 2029 target of EUR 100 million to EUR 150 million. We do not stop here. While PRIME initiatives remain important, sustained energy inflation requires additional measures to manage our addressable energy cost of more than EUR 350 million. In 2026, we focused on power purchase agreements and opportunistic financial hedges to manage energy volatility in Greece and Bulgaria, and we also focus on flexible electricity sourcing across the Southeast Europe region. In 2027, we will continue our initiatives and look to expand our solar PPAs in Türkiye and Egypt, and we are considering investing in battery storage solutions in Greece and Southeast Europe to manage price spreads. Beyond 2027, we look to develop electricity storage capacity, evaluate investments in wind parks to increase our coverage through fixed PPAs, and scale our alternative fuel substitution.
We're aiming through a phased CapEx investment program to move our total substitution rate, TSR, from 20% to 50% by 2030, while our core plants will reach 80%, a TSR already achieved by our Kamari plant in Greece. Moving now to the volume performance. Cement grew by 10%, supported strongly by our acquisitions. Our solid performance in Greece was led by infrastructure projects. Our sales in the U.S. were resilient despite slowdown in domestic market and input shortages. In Egypt, domestic cement sales were solid, while we had notable improvements in our Southeast Europe region as well. Aggregates grew at 6% with continuous growth in Greece and increased demand in our Florida region following recent investments. Our ready-mix volume declined by 1% on a like-for-like basis, reflecting the weaker residential market in the U.S. Our blocks volume increased by 6% as we achieved above-market growth in the U.S.
Finally, albeit a small contributor at this stage, our overall ACMs volume decreased, reflecting the temporary shutdown of our Pozzolan plant in Greece for operational and safety improvements. Moving now to cash flow in the next slide, where our operative free cash flow reached approximately EUR 300 million and supported in this way our investment envelope in CapEx and M&A. While the investment activity increased, our net debt position, our leverage ratio, as we will see in the next page, remains well within investment-grade levels and stands at just 1.56 times our EBITDA. In addition, you can see on the graphic to the right that more than 73% of our debt carries a long-term profile at fixed rates, which is very important in a high-interest market environment. Furthermore, last month, the group successfully completed a EUR 150 million tap of February's bond issuance.
The tap issuance was three times oversubscribed, reflecting Titan's solid credit profile, which attracted a strong investor demand. Let's now turn to our investment profile. Our continued investments are in line and support our Titan Forward strategic priorities. Capital expenditure reached almost EUR 250 million and is focused on growth and efficiency projects, including the expansion of portable ready-mix plants serving data centers, capacity expansion in fly ash and aggregates, captive power generation in Türkiye, and dedicated cement export silos in Egypt. We completed our three acquisitions during the first half of the year, representing an investment of circa EUR 700 million. Their integration is progressing well with operational improvements and synergies ramping up. Overall, EBITDA contribution from M&A is expected to grow from EUR 28 million year-to-date to EUR 45 million in full year 2026 and over EUR 100 million by 2029.
Some of our key CapEx projects are shown in the next slide and include projects for alternative cementitious materials in Brunner Island, Montour in the U.S., and Fiddlers Ferry in the U.K. These projects aim to convert waste into ACM product, reduce CO2 emissions, and create additional revenue streams. We also invest in portable ready-mix plants in our Mid-Atlantic region, which are deployed directly at major project sites such as data centers. We construct new block plants in our Florida region to meet growing demand in Tampa and Jacksonville counties. At the same time, our three large CapEx projects, the construction of a second production line at Traçim in Türkiye, the calcined clay project in Virginia, and the IFESTOS carbon capture storage project in Athens also continue to progress.
If we now look at the status of the integration of our recent acquisitions, we are happy to report that integrations are progressing well with operational improvements gaining momentum. For Keystone, improvements in operational reliability and grinding capacity are gating enablers for product availability and realization of the full portfolio of commercial synergies, while raw material optimization is a major savings contributor. Keystone is targeting more than $30 million of annual run rate synergies by 2029. In Traçim, improvements in clinker-to-cement ratio and alternative fuel usage, as well as driving operational excellence and optimizing fixed costs, are some of the key initiatives that will bring more than $25 million of annual run rate synergies by 2029. Let me now give you an overview of our market's performance. In the U.S., we experienced mixed market conditions with strength in infrastructure, commercial, and data centers, while residential market remains subdued.
Organic sales grew by 2% year-on-year, while EBITDA was held at EUR 228 million, an 11% decline year-on-year, impacted primarily by market conditions, higher energy costs, and one-offs. Productivity initiatives partially offset the rising energy cost inflation, while, as already discussed, Keystone integration is on track with EUR 11 million EBITDA contribution expected in 2026. Moving to Greece, where domestic demand remains strong with infrastructure, residential, and commercial being the key demand drivers. Sales reached EUR 460 million, a 19% reported growth driven by strong pricing and higher domestic cement and aggregates volumes, while EBITDA reached EUR 74 million, a 31% growth supported by positive price-cost spread and the VDE acquisition. Moving now to the Southeast region, where market conditions remain strong and broadly stable with volumes ahead of last year in most countries. Sales reached EUR 333 million, up 6%, driven by higher pricing and volume growth, while input pressures persist, particularly in Albania.
EBITDA grew by 1%, with energy and electricity remaining the key cost pressures. In East Med, demand in Egypt continued to grow despite geopolitical uncertainty, with higher domestic volumes and pricing improvements year-on-year across both domestic and export markets. In Turkey, Traçim integration, as already discussed, is progressing well, contributing around EUR 73 million in sales and EUR 15 million in EBITDA. Full year 2026 EBITDA contribution for Traçim is expected to reach EUR 25 million. Overall, in our East Med region, reported sales reached EUR 244 million, a 32% increase, while EBITDA increased 41% versus prior year. Finally, in Brazil, where domestic cement consumption increased by 1% in the nine months of 2026, while in the Northeast region where we operate, consumption rose by 7.5%. Our sales grew by 29% on the back of improved volumes and pricing realization.
EBITDA nearly doubled to EUR 40 million, driven by disciplined execution and robust commercial performance. This led to material margin expansion. Now for the full year outlook. We forecast high single-digit sales growth and mid-single-digit EBITDA growth supported by the contribution of the acquisitions and our self-help measures. Project PRIME, as already shared, is targeting approximately EUR 60 million of benefits for the full year, while our 2026 CapEx is expected to reach EUR 300 million, including investments in our recently acquired assets. This concludes my presentation. I will now pass the mic back to our call operator to manage the Q&A.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Ephrem Ravi with Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. If I may have three short questions. Firstly, can you give us an update as to where you are on your alternate fuel use? Obviously, clearly important in the context of higher energy costs now and going forward. You had the 50% target by 2030. I think last year you were at about 23% and about 21% the year before. So it looks like a steep pickup in the next three to four years. Can you give us a sense as to how the path to get there, and if possible, some order of magnitude of the EUR million benefit from that switch? Secondly, the IFESTOS CCS. Again, can you give us a status update on it in terms of where we are in terms of actually deploying, or is it before that?
Finally, on Keystone, the $30 million synergies run rate by 2029, again, looking at phasing for it to offset some of the U.S. market weakness that you're seeing now. Thank you.
Thank you, Ephrem, for your questions. John will say a few words about the alternative fuels, but let me reconfirm the targets. We are well on track to achieve more than 50%, 53.4% for 2030 ambition, 2029, 2030 ambition. We have only slightly improved this year, but there is a number of investments that we are currently doing, particularly in Thessaloniki plant, where we will complete these investments before the end of the year. In Kamari, we have just reached for the first time 80% in alternative fuel usage or substitution, which is already visible in the bottom line. As part of the Project PRIME, the fuels or the energy price is almost 40%. That gives you already an idea about the impact for the year. For 2029, 2030, with 53%, we aim at bringing an additional benefit of EUR 122 million.
I don't know, John, if you have anything else to add.
If you can
I'd like just to mention that Keystone is also having a license to use the hazardous waste, and that has also very nice benefits, which are included in the overall synergies for Keystone. A big improvement will come also from Traçim, which practically starts from 0%. We have achieved in the first few months since the acquisition already 15%, and currently there are investments and also sourcing opportunities to double that. Similarly, in our plants in Egypt, particularly in Alexandria, where we are also looking at using derived fuel waste from the big city of Alexandria with a long-term contract. I'm very confident that this cost driver is going to benefit. There is a dedicated organization with topic champions in each of the countries, and we are super well-focused on this.
Marcel, I can just add here a couple of points that currently five of our plants account for 78% of our group substitution rate, which means it highlights the opportunity to scale the deployment. As Marcel said, we're going to have a phased strategic CapEx of more than EUR 100 million over the next five years to invest around waste pre-processing, whether it's shredders, sorting lines, screening and material preparation systems, fuel handling and feeding conveyors, dosing units, kiln and calciner upgrades, et cetera. We're very committed for this, and we see this as a strategic structural investment.
Regarding your question on IFESTOS, our CCS project, the regulatory framework, as I mentioned, is not mature enough for this project to enter a financial closure. Currently, we are focusing our efforts in negotiating with the government on carbon contracts for difference. The Greek government has not yet established its framework, as well as aligning the different players across the value chain in terms of transportation under the seabed storage and the costs or the economics associated with this. We are running the project at a very low CapEx spending as we speak. We will update in due time on when the financial closure will happen, but for sure, not this year, not next year. The largest part of the capital, if the project has the economics for us to pursue it in its current form, will be post-2029.
On Keystone, yes, we reconfirmed the synergies target of EUR 30 million. John, you want to-
Sure
go into details?
Yeah, sure. On Keystone, basically operational reliability and grinding capacity and efficiency initiatives, as well as improvements in our storage and logistics, we consider those gating enablers or opportunities for product availability and realization of the full portfolio of the commercial synergies that is actually in progress now and will drive a lot of synergies. At the same time, raw material optimization is a major synergy contributor. Quarry evaluation and mine planning is progressing to replace the purchased limestone with on-site high-calcium materials. This increased limestone substitution in finished cement will lower the clinker-to-cement ratio in finished products and will drive many benefits, as you can imagine.
I can also add, Ephrem, that we have a highly dedicated and passionate team in Keystone, Pennsylvania, supported by the plants, particularly the plant of Roanoke in Virginia. We already have seen a significant improvement in kiln reliability. I think we have published this information that we have taken over this underinvested asset at 10% margin. I can tell you that that margin at the end of quarter three was already at 16%, and it is growing very, very nicely. However, we have a number of investments, again, planned maintenance, which need to happen this year and early next year for the margin to increase and start being accretive for the overall group.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ephrem.
The next question is from the line of Marios Bourazanis with Eurobank Equities. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for your presentation and for taking my questions. Just a couple of questions from my side. I wanted to start with U.S. margins. I saw in the press release that you quantified the EUR 6 million impact from the Roanoke outage in Q3. I was just wondering if you could help us understand what drove the rest of the margin pressure in the U.S., whether that was more on the cost side or on the volume side. Also in the U.S., on the price increases that you mentioned that you have announced from next year onwards, if you could give us a sense of the magnitude there. Last question on Traçim, I was just wondering if you could clarify where you stand with the potential second production line.
Is the final decision in regards to the investment still expected or It wasn't really clear from the press release, so I just wanted to know a bit more color on that. Thank you.
Thank you for your questions. Look, on the U.S. margins, I think we have announced in Q2, we had an extended shutdown at that time, one that comes every seven to 10 years, as we have replaced part of the shell of the kiln and also one of the kiln tires. So that was responsible for about $6 million-$7 million. In Q3, we had this unplanned stoppage of our finished mills, which is responsible for the loss of about 60,000 tons and again, another EUR 6 million. So that has impacted both, in fact, to your question, the top line and also the cost line. That's behind us, which is good to mark.
Other elements of pressure on the U.S. margins, I think in the press release and also in the early presentation, we have detailed that the Florida market was under the constraints of not only one of the wettest months of September on record, but also we have seen a further drop on the residential market, which is a combination of mortgage rates going, as you know, in the area of 7%-7.5%. Job site labor constraints as the number of ICE interventions in particularly in this sector has been multiplied, particularly in Florida markets. There are statistics we can provide you, and this intensified. Of course, BUILD America 250 infrastructure project, which has been spending about 40%, also recorded some delays.
Now, going forward, we expect that the infrastructure program, which is a bipartisan, bilateral program, will be reconducted, and that will offer, as of early 2027, already an impact in the market. Infrastructure is important to us, maybe to 20% end use value in Florida and more than 40% in West Virginia. We also expect data centers to continue. We have a good market share in Virginia in data centers, and we have recently invested in a number of portable plants which allow us to serve campuses of data centers. So with 50% market share, with a good price elasticity in this end use segment, and this representing also close to 10% of the overall volumes in Mid-Atlantic, in our West Virginia, that's also a positive impact.
American Cement Association is seeing some positive trends in the second half of 2027, including for residential housing, but obviously this will depend on how the interest rates and the inflationary pressures will continue. The U.S. price increases, yes, we have announced them in the market. They are quite important in terms of magnitudes. We have announced $12 per ton in cement, and similarly for all our product lines, all our other product lines like Ready Mix and also Fly Ash, and a little bit lower on the aggregate. Now, they have been announced to the market. They are announced for 1st of January, and we will keep monitoring how this is perceived, reacted, and we'll inform you at the next call on that price realization.
Traçim, we are very happy with the way the synergies and the integration progresses, and I already mentioned that we have synergies on cost. We already had a number of price increases which offset the inflation, but also the devaluations over the past three months. We are progressing on the second line. We already do works on the cement silos, and we are in a full tendering phase for the EPC contract, which will be awarded very soon. We will be, in this way, equipped with a low-cost technology close to the port, able to serve not only our needs in an uninterrupted way in U.S. I remind you that 30% of our volumes in U.S. are imported from one good source. But at the same time, it's a low-deliver-cost operation in the market of Istanbul, which is a 15 million people market with very good growth patterns.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Vasilis Kollias with NBG Securities. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions from my side. The first question relates to the win of Democrats in U.S., and I would like to ask you if you see any upside in the housing market, which is very crucial for the group, and now is a burden for the U.S. cement market. My second question relates to the higher contribution from the associates in profitability. Could you please comment the main driver in that line? Thank you very much.
Brazil.
Brazil.
John, maybe you look for the numbers in Brazil. We are also looking with a broad interest in how the 2026 midterm results appear. They seem to broadly support our U.S. medium-term demand and ambitions. I think a Democratic control of Congress would provide additional support for infrastructure investment. I already mentioned that. While the significant Democratic gains in some of the East Coast states where we are present, that increase the likelihood that public infrastructure, energy grid investment remain policy priorities. I think the affordability is a clear issue, so the expectation is that housing bill, but also a transportation bill will be on the top of the agenda in Washington for the coming months. At the same time, we have to watch what will happen to the federal initiatives.
We do not see any headwinds there, but how fast they will be enacted, I think it is important to us. I think overall, for the long term, the fundamentals of U.S. market, they remain untouched. The number of houses or deficit in housing is significant, and it gets closer to 6 million houses. The underbuild and the state of the infrastructure, that also reclaims significant investment. We are well-positioned, again, for the data center construction. As I mentioned, we are investing heavily in dedicating teams, dedicating portable plants, and dedicating offers which meet the criteria of hyperscalers. That is for now on how we read the elections, broadly supportive to our ambitions.
I think the key question is how fast this will occasion immediate actions in the infrastructure, and then how this will drive down the inflationary pressures, mainly from which are oil-driven, and the affordability, which is mortgage rates driven. John, on Brazil?
Yes. The question, I think, was the high growth in net profit. Yes. The two drivers, the main driver is the improved performance in Brazil, where sales there, as I have said before, grew by 29% and EBITDA by 97%. What drove those is improved volumes combined with price increases, and also supported with disciplined execution and robust commercial performance. That drove the profitability that flew down to the bottom line. But in addition, as you know, in the U.S., we have the new Beautiful Bill or the Tax Act that basically allowed us to accelerate some of the depreciation, which supported as well the net income line.
That is clear. Thank you very much.
The next question is from the line of Stathis Kaparis with Axia Alpha Finance. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, if I may. The first one is on the CapEx and the slight reduction aspect. This is timing-related, right? It is not like you have decided not to go ahead with projects. If anything, Tassos indicates that there is an appetite to move forward. The other one is labor scarcity in Florida. Is that a bit worrying? Residential market is taking another downturn, and at the same time, we have labor scarcity. I mean, going forward, if the residential market indeed picks up, will that be an issue? Thank you.
On the CapEx, you are right, Stathis. The reduction is more related to our project of managing costs and cash in a very proactive level, but we are not delaying growth CapEx, which is meant to support the Titan Forward 2029 strategy. I think the few examples which John and I, we gave, we doubled down on, again, acquiring reserves and making investments for the availability of lower costs, but higher accretive margins for fly ash. We are also making improvements in our pozzolan quarries, making improvements and investments through FEP, both in U.S. and U.K. On that front, you should see us, you should expect from us accelerating similarly on alternative fuels. We just mentioned that our ambitions of moving from the mid-20s to 50% in the next couple of years remains intact.
We will continue building these capacities at low cost in Türkiye, as well as in looking at the kaolin clay in the U.S. These projects will continue at their pace in line with our strategy, and they will support margin accretive developments. The labor scarcity, this has to do with obviously the impact of ICE and the number of interventions, which used to be at the level of 25,000-27,000 people per month before the summer, and now has reached 50,000 people. They impacted several sites, particularly in some of our markets in Florida. We expect the impact to be temporary as the construction companies are obviously working to make it more resilient. We see much lesser of an impact in Mid-Atlantic, and there we are again exposed at about 40% on the residential, 40% on infrastructure, and 20% on commercial and data centers.
I do not see this going at higher levels or more disruptive levels in the future.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further audio questions. We will now move on to any written questions from our webcast participants. The next question is from Auguste Deryckx with Kepler Cheuvreux, and I quote, "Hi, thanks for the presentation. I have one question. For full year 2027, if U.S. residential demand remains weak throughout the year, can you still deliver meaningful EBITDA margin expansion, or is a market recovery essential?" Thanks, Auguste.
Thank you, Auguste, for your question. Look, I have already said we are watching on the market developments and the dynamics, the demand dynamics. We expect bipartisan support on reconducting the infrastructure, and I think the December decision will be critical on this side. I think I already mentioned that housing and residential and the impact on rates and the whole issue of affordability, which now into a new Congress and more Democratic Party views, we expect in the second half to start seeing an inflection point. But we also expect full speed for data centers where we are well-positioned. On the market side, we expect similar conditions with this year, with possible inflection point in the second half of the year. The second is, I would say, our focus on price, positive price over cost.
Here, I already mentioned that we have announced price increases with effective dates 1st of January. We will keep you updated on how this goes. We have also on the cost side, the equivalent of PRIME in the U.S., where we are already delivering $20 million year to date. We are aiming at $50 million over the next couple of years. That's a combination of logistics, fuel cost, energy cost going forward. The focus here is positive price over cost. The third one is that we have a number of growth CapEx, which again, will yield results and protect margins, but with a specific focus on delivering Keystone synergies. We are moving at full speed to the $30 million we have previously announced in synergies, and I already gave you some examples.
Margins are improving from 10% to 16% over one quarter only, and the reliability and the other investments, including commercial synergies, are also visible. I think the last one is that you will not see the surprises of the unplanned outages and maintenance. All this make me rather confident that we will see margin expansion next year.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Cobuz for any closing comments. Thank you.
Thank you all. Thank you for joining us. This has been a challenging quarter by many dimensions, but we remain committed first to finish well the year, to have the benefits of our self-help program accelerating for the coming months, prepare well 2027 with a number of actions on price increases ahead of the year. We discuss a lot about U.S., but we are doing similar actions in our other markets. Our focus on delivering synergies is as strong as we explained since we made the acquisitions, and happy to report that we are on track here. At the same time, the growth CapEx in the very good spirit of Titan of exercising capital allocation discipline will be favoring those which are margin accretive. We will see you for the end of the year results. For any questions, please refer also to Spyros Kamizoulis.
For the analysts, I think we have a number of events which are organized both in Southern Europe as well as in Northern Europe in the coming months. We will be happy to take your questions and to walk you through all our exciting projects going forward. Thank you, Spiros and John. Thank you all for joining and wishing you a good afternoon, good evening, and stay safe.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a good afternoon.